


The Search for McGucket

by EaglePursuit



Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [9]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Crystal - Freeform, F/M, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Short, Teenage Dipper Pines, Teenage Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines, Teenage Mabel Pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit
Summary: Part 9 of the Another Summer's Sunny Days series. Having detected the distinctive sound of subterranean hamboning, Ford leads the Shackers on a rescue mission in Crash Site Omega
Relationships: Dipper Pines/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792519
Kudos: 13





	The Search for McGucket

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: Disney’s Gravity Falls  
> Created by: Alex Hirsch
> 
> Beta readers: my wife & PK2317  
> Art by: KID | @KIDWMA

The Search for McGucket

“This is very curious.” Ford hunched over a deep black hole on top of a hill in the center of the valley.

Stan looked over his shoulder. “What’s that, Poindexter?”

“Fiddleford and I always made sure that the entrance to the saucer remained closed,” Ford said, as much an answer to his brother as musing aloud.

The four Pines, plus Soos and Wendy stood around the vertical shaft. Whoever had pried the hatch off had leaned it against a nearby boulder.

“This is so cool, dudes. I’m glad you invited me.” Soos wasn’t wearing his Mister Mystery suit, opting to dress down in his old staff shirt and cargo shorts for the adventure. He peered down into the shaft. “I bet this thing echoes real good. SOOS!” A moment later it echoed “Soos” back at him over and over. He began to count the echos to himself.

“Do you think someone or some- _ thing _ else could be down there?” Dipper glanced down the shaft as well.

Ford put his hands on his hips. “We should be ready for anything as always.” 

“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…” Soos continued to count.

“For those of you who haven’t been here before, I have to warn you: this thing is mostly a decrepit, derelict pile of parts. But as Dipper and I discovered last summer, it still has surprises. So stay alert.” Ford looked pointedly at each of them.

Stan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know the drill. We did this in that glacier in Greenland in December, remember? The frostbite on my tuchus still hurts.” 

Mabel took a swig from her canteen. “Alert is my middle name!” The enthusiasm in her voice and the smell of sugar on her breath were palpable.

Wendy gave her best impression of a sharp salute. She had her favorite axe tucked into the back of her belt.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…” said Soos, still listening for echos.

Ford looked impatiently at the large man. “Soos, are you ready?”

“Ah, I lost count. Sorry, Mr. Pines. I’m ready.” 

“Very good. Let’s head down. Everyone, follow my lead.” Ford leaped into the hole with a ‘Hup!’.

* * *

Ford led the rescue party down damp corridors with his blindingly bright flashlight, deep into the heart of the ship. The further into the saucer, the more degraded the interior appeared. Occasionally they passed alien skeletons.

Having been there before, Dipper took his time to look at the details of the ship, marvelling at the quality of craftsmanship that permitted it to withstand an impact powerful enough to tear a crater in the ground and then remain relatively intact for millions of years of tectonic activity. Nothing any human has ever made would be able to survive all that.

Mabel stayed true to her words and whirled around at every creaky hinge, metallic groan, or plop of water, shining her cell phone light down darkened side passages and yawning chasms to spot the origins of the sounds; all while sipping from her canteen.

Soos and Wendy tagged along like tourists gawking at exhibits in the Mystery Shack.

Stan brought up the rear, grumbling.

“So, Dipper,” Mabel teased, “did you tell Crystal you were going into an ancient underground UFO today?”

“I left her a text. I told her we were going spelunking,” he replied matter-of-factly. “We need to keep this thing a secret. If word got out, some two-bit huckster would probably find a way to profit off it.”

“If I had known about this place I coulda made a huge profit givin’ guided tours and sellin’ souvenirs,” Stan whispered to Soos and Wendy.

Ford stopped short. “Hold on,” he told the others, “I can hear it now.” They strained their ears and were barely able to make out the rhythmic slapping sounds that Ford had played on the Tapeman.

“Do you know what it means, Grunkle Ford?” asked Mabel.

Ford stared off into the darkness. “I spent years with Fiddleford while he was still quite sane, but I was never able to make any sense of his hamboning.” They pressed on. Before long the sound was plainly audible, echoing through the corridors. “We’re getting close to the spot where I think Fiddleford was getting the parts he used on his gamma-ray laser. Watch your step. There are security triggers here.” He shined his light on the floor and demonstrated for the others how to step over the optical sensors. One by one they carefully avoided the traps.

As Soos moved over the traps he glimpsed markings on the wall. “Heh heh. Dudes, this alien writing looks like emoticons. It’s like, sad face, arrow, eggplant, splash, peach, arrow, happy face.” He laughed. “That’s dirty.”

“They’re hieroglyphics, Soos. The symbols express ideas. So they are like your internet emoticons. Now please pay attention to where you are placing your feet.” Ford grimaced.

But it was too late. Soos had absentmindedly blundered through an invisible beam. The sensor in the wall clicked softly. “Uh oh. I think I made the UFO mad, dudes.”

Six bubble-like security droids, devoid of detail except a single red triangle each, appeared from a side passage and surrounded them. “Everyone, stay completely calm and they won’t attack us,” Ford warned.

Ford, Stan, and Dipper were the first to be scanned. The droids took biometric readings and moved on.

“Nice job, Dipper,” Ford commended him quietly. “I see you’ve learned to control your fear.”

The droids scanned Soos next as he continued to chuckle at hieroglyphics then moved completely past Wendy to Mabel. All six surrounded her as they took her readings. She appeared completely calm and still to outside appearances.

Dipper thought of something. “Mabel, is that Mabel Juice in your canteen?” he asked without moving his lips.

“Maybe,” she mumbled.

“Grappling hook, now!” Dipper shouted. 

Mabel pulled it out of her sweater and launched the hook into some overhead machinery with an adroitness that would make an Old West gunfighter proud. She flew into the air just as the space she had been standing was filled with laser blasts.

Ford drew his pair of magnet guns. Since last summer, he had modified them to be used at range for just such an occasion. He tossed one to Dipper, who fired it at one of the droids and disabled it with an electromagnetic blast. Ford disabled another as Stan began pounding on a third with his brass knuckles.

Wendy slid her axe out of her belt while Soos produced a shovel. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Have you been carrying that thing this whole time?”

“You don’t want to know where it’s been, dude.” He swung it at a droid.

Dipper spotted one of the droids that had broken away from the melee on the ground and was chasing Mabel around the ceiling of an adjacent chamber. “Come on!” he called to Wendy. He adjusted the selector knob on his magnet gun with his thumb as she grabbed his arm. He pointed the gun at the droid pursuing his sister and pulled the trigger, yanking both of them off the ground on a wild ride to the quick-moving alien robot.

Dipper grasped the gun as it stuck to the droid’s surface. Over the din of machinery and fighting, Wendy yelled out, “Hold on! I’m going to swing.” She kicked her long legs and pitched herself over the droid, landing on top. She held the axe over her head with one hand and brought it down through the top of the droid’s shell with a loud crack. 

It immediately crashed to the floor and rolled with the two teens clinging to it. “That plan sounded so much less painful in my head.” Dipper stumbled to his feet as Wendy sprang up from a somersault.

Stan and Soos finished off the last droid in the entrance to the large chamber Mabel had drawn the fight into. Ford walked in behind it. “That actually went surprisingly well. Good job, everyone.”

“Yes!” Soos pumped his fist. “Team Mystery Shack rules, dudes!”

Stan winced in pain and stuck his finger in his ear, slowly rotating it.

Ford looked at him with concern. “What is it?”

“Either my hearing aid is acting up, or I’m getting a huge amount of background static all of a sudden.” Stan complained.

Ford’s concern increased. “Does it sound like whooshing?”

“A buzzy whooshing, yeah. And it’s getting louder.” Stan continued adjusting the volume on his hearing aid.

“Oh no…” Ford’s voice was drowned out as the sound became audible to everyone. Security droids began to fill the chamber from every direction.

Dipper started firing magnetic blasts at anything that moved. A robotic tentacle reached out of the swirling chaos and wrapped around his waist. It pulled him off balance and was dragging him towards a crush of orbs when a high-pitched battlecry filled his ears. A tall figure hurtled through his peripheral vision and brought a lumberjack’s axe down on the tentacle severing it in one blow.

Dipper shouted with relief. “Wendy!”

“I got your back, man!”

“Look, there’s an opening.” He pointed down a side passage that had become temporarily clear.

“Let’s go!” The two ran down the corridor and several others that presented low resistance until they came to a room with multiple consoles and a ceiling that had been largely ripped off, revealing bare rock. Dipper blasted the single droid that occupied the room. “Look,” Wendy pointed to the side of one console. “This panel is open. We can hide inside and figure out what to do next.”

“It’ll be just like that cabinet at the Dusk 2 Dawn.” Dipper followed her on hands and knees into the confined space and pulled the panel back over the opening to conceal their hiding spot.

* * *

Mabel was standing on a crossmember near the ceiling when the room filled with security droids. From her vantage point she managed to see Dipper and Wendy disappear down a corridor, but she lost track of Soos and Stan in the ensuing fracas.

Ford was making a desperate stand in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by the wreckage of droids he blasted with his magnet gun. Every one he deactivated seemed to be replaced by two more, and he was being inexorably overwhelmed.

“No, Grunkle Ford! Not like this,” Mabel whispered, fingers tightening around her grappling hook with resolve, and fired it in his direction. She flipped the catch and flicked her wrist expertly right as the hook sailed by him, causing it to spin around his torso and snag onto its own rope. She pulled him to the ceiling just as his position was swarmed by droids.

“Mabel! That’s my girl.” Ford shrugged off the ropes, standing next to her on the crossmember.

She smiled at him. “Hi-i-i-i-i!” 

“Did you bring Project 816 like I asked you to?”

“You betcha!” Mabel pulled a glossy-black, knitted blanket out of her sweater and handed it to him. Several months prior Ford had secretly asked Mabel via email to create the blanket for him to a highly specific design. She had managed to complete it just before leaving for Gravity Falls.

“Did you test it?” he asked as he covered the both of them with it.

“How do you think I got Waddles on the bus? Dipper was so confused; sleight of ham.” —she giggled at the memory— “Then I lost it when we got here till it ran out of batteries. Don’t worry, I put new ones in,” she pushed a button built into the weave and they both disappeared.

“This blanket renders us invisible across the entire spectrum of radiation visible to any being I ever encountered in the multiverse. It should hide us from these droids.” Ford ran his fingers over the material appreciatively. “Now let’s get down to the floor and find the others.”

* * *

“Run like ya stole somethin’, Soos!” Stan yelled as they careened through unfamiliar corridors being followed by a huge horde of security droids firing lasers at them.

“I’ve never run so fast in my life, Mr. Pines!” Soos panted.

Their corridor suddenly opened into a wide chasm and the laser blasts shooting past them twinkled off into the darkness. Stan noticed a path ran left along the edge of the void and made the turn, but Soos’s inertia prevented him from altering his trajectory in time and he tipped out over the precipice. 

Stan reached out to pull him back to safety, and Soos grabbed his hand. But his momentum was too much and he fell, pulling Stan over the edge with him. Soos fell backwards into the nothingness, grasping Stan who struggled against the unexpected embrace.

“Soos!” Stan screamed as they fell.

They hit another ledge a single level down, then rolled off it and fell again, farther. This time they landed for good.

“Soos. You all right, buddy?” Stan asked. Soos’s arms were wrapped around him in a bear hug and his face was smashed into Soos’s pudding-soft chest.

Soos let Stan go and sat up. “Yeah. Luckily this pile of jagged rubble broke my fall.” He pulled a sharp piece of debris from his back.

Stan noticed that they were not immediately attacked by homicidal bubbles. “Do ya think we lost them?”

“I hope so.”

“You saved my life, Soos. You’re a good man.” Stan said gruffly. “Never hug me again.”

“You got it, Mr. Pines. Hey do you hear that?” Soos asked. The sound of hamboning was coming from somewhere nearby.

* * *

“Since we’re stuck in here for a while, do you mind if I ask you something, man?” Wendy’s back was hunched against the inside of the console. Dipper was pressed up against her side, and they could smell each other’s breath in the close confines.

“Technically, you just did,” Dipper pointed out. “What’s up?”

“Ha!” Wendy laughed at his joke then became serious. “I overheard you and Mabel talking earlier. How’s it going with Crystal?”

Dipper sighed. “It’s tricky. Back home, it was great. We did everything together and everything was fine. Now I’m here, she’s not, and it’s...tense. I miss her, but she’s angry about everything I do. It’s like, we were compatible at home; then I came here and I’m a different person. And now it doesn’t seem like we’re so compatible anymore.”

Wendy rubbed the back of her neck. It was already sore from the cramped space. “You know Sam, right? Her older sister got engaged to her boyfriend at high school graduation. They planned their wedding all summer. Then she went to Eastern Oregon and he went to Oregon State and they broke up within a month. I’m not saying you and Crystal are going to be like them, but, like, long-distance relationships are hard, man; even for adults. It’s just, like, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have everything figured out at thirteen.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Dipper sighed again. “I just hope we can hold it together till I get home.”

* * *

Stan walked down a corridor with deliberate slowness. “I think...” He paused, listening. “I think it’s coming from right here.” He turned, pushed open a door, and was rewarded with a wave of putrid odor. “Ugh. It stinks in there.” He reeled back, eyes watering.

Soos pulled his shirt over his nose and peeked inside. McGucket was chained by his ankle to a pipe that stretched from floor to ceiling. He was covered in his own filth. He didn’t acknowledge them, but continued patting his hands on his slender thighs.

“Poor guy!” Soos reacted sympathetically. “I wonder who did this to him.”

McGucket heard his voice and his crazy eyes lit up. “Durn tiddlywink spittle snack hurdy-goats.”

Stan raised an eyebrow and looked at Soos. “I understood exactly none of that. It’s worse than Ford’s science babbling.”

“We need to get him out of here. Do you think we can bust that pipe?”

Stan grimaced. “Yeah, I think so. Just give me a sec so I can tie a piece of my shirt over my mouth.”

The two men entered the small room and grabbed the middle on the pipe.

“On three,” Stan said, taking the lead. He and Soos both braced a foot on the wall. “Three!” he barked, and they pulled the pipe. It bent and then the fitting near the base shattered with a bang that reverberated around the ship.

Soos cringed. “Oh, that was bad.” He quickly worked McGucket’s chain off the end of the pipe and carried the old-timer into the relatively fresh air of the corridor.

Stan followed them out of the room. “Do you think our bubble friends heard that?”

A security droid appeared from around a corner as if to answer his question.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” Stan slipped on his brass knuckles.

* * *

Dipper stared at the underside of the control panel in silence, listening to security droids go by. He had no idea how long they had been sitting in the console, but even he was sore from the cramped space, despite his more compact size. This console had been raided for parts at some point, which is why it was empty and the side panel loose for them to slip inside. Several components had been torn from the control panel on top, leaving gaps they could vaguely see through.

Wendy cocked her head to the side. “Hey, I just noticed something.”

“What?”

“One of the other stations in this room is lit up. I can just barely see it through one of the holes in the top when I turn by head.”

“Can I see?” They shifted around until Dipper was practically sitting on her lap.

“It’s a good thing you’re so small.” Wendy grunted under his weight.

“Just what every guy wants to hear.” He rolled his eyes sardonically. “I can see it. There are illuminated hieroglyphics on its panel.”

“Dude, are you done looking yet?” Wendy’s voice was strained.

He slipped back to his original position and Wendy breathed a sigh of relief. “Based on what Ford said about hieroglyphics being basically emoticons, I think I can turn off the security droids from that console!”

“Great. So how do we get over there? They patrol this room every few seconds.”

Dipper mulled it over for a few seconds. “How do you feel about being a distraction? You get them to chase you out of here. I’ll run over and turn off the console.”

“Hopefully, before I get killed or captured.” Wendy grimaced wryly.

“Right. Sounds good?”

Wendy shrugged. “It’s the best plan I’ve heard all day.” 

They went through the process of awkwardly repositioning themselves again so that Wendy could get out of the hiding spot first. “Okay, I’m ready to go.” Wendy took a few deep breaths, pushed her way out of the console, and shattered the first droid she saw with an upstroke from her axe. Then she turned and charged down a corridor yelling, “COOORRRDDDDUURRRROOOYYY!” The several security droids in the room gave chase.

As soon as the coast was clear Dipper slid out of the console and ran to the one Wendy had spotted earlier. He examined the top panel, looking for a way to turn off the droids.

“Dipper, hurry!” Wendy’s voice echoed from the corridor.

He found a button that clearly had a symbol of a droid followed by an arrow and a smaller dot laying on a horizontal line. He pushed it.

* * *

Soos was buried up to his waist in one security droid while he had one arm up to his shoulder inside another that had captured and encapsulated McGucket. He was holding on tight to the wrist of the old hillbilly who was singing a merry, nonsensical tune to himself. Soos’ other arm was wrapped around Stan’s torso. Stan’s head was stuck inside a third droid and he was cursing and pounding on it with his brass knuckles. Several other droids were crowding the corridor to prevent a possible escape.

“Soos, I asked you not to hug me again!” Stan yelled from inside the sphere.

“Sorry, Mr. Pines,” Soos apologized through gritted teeth, “but I’m not letting go of you.” He was being pulled in three directions at once.

The droid that had captured Stan’s head began pulling harder and he screamed in pain. Just as Stan couldn’t take any more, the red triangles on the droids turned blue and they fell to the floor, releasing the captives. The droids shrank to the size of softballs, and rolled off into the darkness.

The three men laid there, gasping for breath.

“Soos, you can let go of me now,” Stan muttered.

“I don’t think I can, Mr. Pines.”

“Let go, Soos,” he ordered gruffly and Soos’s arm went limp.

They took their time recovering their strength and were preparing to leave when Dipper and Wendy found them. “You guys couldn’ta got here a little sooner?” Stan complained.

Dipper furrowed his brow in protest. “We started looking for you guys as soon as we could. We heard Mabel scream. Is everyone alright?”

“I didn’t scream!” Mabel said indignantly as she and Ford appeared out of thin air at the other end of the corridor. “We thought it was Wendy.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Look, let’s not focus on little details like who may or may not have screamed like a teenage girl. What’s important is that  _ I _ found the hillbilly and everyone is alive. Besides, it was  _ Soos _ that screamed like a girl.”

* * *

Abuelita spooned warm soup into McGucket’s mouth as he sat, wrapped in a blanket on the oversized armchair in the Mystery Shack’s living room. The Pines, Soos, and Melody gathered around him with concern.

“Fiddleford’s dehydrated and half-starved, but otherwise he’s physically fine,” Ford declared, packing up a bag of medical tools. “I’d say his verbal condition is caused by mental trauma.”

Mabel stared with fascination at the tools Ford was putting away. “I didn’t know you’re a doctor.”

Ford shrugged.“I’m not a medical doctor, but I have three PHDs in biology. I figure it’s close enough. Since he doesn’t have a home anymore, I’m taking it upon myself to watch over Fiddleford. I’ll set up another cot for him in my study. Hopefully, with some care and coaxing we can get him to tell us how this happened.”

Be sure to read the next adventure:

Independence Day


End file.
